News
- Animals
How a tiny spider uses silk to lift prey 50 times its own weight
Dropping the right silk can haul mice, lizards and other giants up off the ground.
- Archaeology
An ancient Egyptian mummy was wrapped in an unusual mud shell
Commoners in ancient Egypt may have used mud in place of expensive resin to imitate royal mummification techniques.
- Physics
The Milky Way’s newfound high-energy glow hints at the secrets of cosmic rays
Gamma rays with energies approaching a quadrillion electron volts emanate from the disk of the Milky Way.
- Paleontology
This ancient sea reptile had a slicing bite like no other
Right up until 66 million years ago, the sea was a teeming evolutionary laboratory with a small, agile, razor-toothed mosasaur patrolling the waters.
- Health & Medicine
COVID-19 precautions may be reducing cases of flu and other respiratory infections
The same efforts to prevent COVID-19’s spread can keep other respiratory infections at bay. But once we go back to normal, outbreaks could be larger.
- Climate
Ship exhaust studies overestimate cooling from pollution-altered clouds
Lines of clouds formed by ship exhaust offer a window into aerosol-cloud interactions but may overestimate how much pollution-altered clouds cool the climate.
- Health & Medicine
Diabetes during pregnancy is tied to heart trouble later in life
Gestational diabetes may increase a woman’s risk of having hardened arteries later in life, a long-term study finds.
- Health & Medicine
The antidepressant fluvoxamine could keep mild COVID-19 from worsening
Newly infected patients who chose to take fluvoxamine quickly recovered, while 12.5 percent who didn’t wound up hospitalized.
- Health & Medicine
What do COVID-19 vaccines mean for daily life in the months ahead?
Effective COVID-19 vaccines are a ray of hope. But masks and distancing are still necessary, especially with contagious variants spreading.
- Health & Medicine
One-shot COVID-19 vaccine is effective against severe disease
The effectiveness of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine at preventing hospitalization and death holds up against a South Africa variant of the coronavirus.
- Genetics
Lizard-like tuatara carry two distinct mitochondrial genomes
Having two mitochondrial genetic instruction books, a first for vertebrates, may help explain tuatara’s unique ability to tolerate cold temperatures.
- Health & Medicine
Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine is effective, but less so with some variants
Novavax’s vaccine fends off the original coronavirus and a U.K. variant, but had more trouble with a South Africa variant.
